Was Pokémon GO too easy?

[Squirrel]

Recently I've seen a lot of people complaining about recent changes to GO and how they're making it harder to catch Pokémon, harder to find Pokémon, harder to play whilst driving, etc, and this is obviously causing Niantic a heck of a lot of backlash. However, I've also spent weeks hearing from these same people that levels take too long to reach because you zip past all of the lower levels so quickly, that it takes too long to find new Pokémon because you already have your Pokédex 90% completed other than the very rare ones and that in general the game has just felt too fast to complete the bulk of the content. All of this has got me thinking that perhaps the balance changes being made to the game aren't necessarily that bad of a thing - finding less Pokémon whilst driving seems like a somewhat justified nerf given the ridiculous rates of catching Pokémon and finding PokéStops in a vehicle and, ignoring the tracker being broken which I would class as a bug/broken feature rather than an intentional balance tweak (and has been confirmed as a priority to look into), it feels like the game pace really could have done with being slowed down a tad from the start. Obviously it will make people temporarily unhappy that it's now harder to catch Pokémon etc, but I wonder if in the long term people will end up happier that they were able to keep playing the game for that much longer because they hadn't completed it in weeks.

What do you guys think about this? Do you think the game was too easy/fast and that balance tweaks are justified? Do you think they are moving in the right direction or have made the game too hard?

Once again I must stress, this thread is ignoring features like the tracker being broken as to the best of our knowledge this wasn't an intentional balance change.

 

[Phoenixstarz]

It's very quick to get to level 20, I am level 23 and my wife is level 21 and my total exp is almost double hers.
As for whether it was too easy to find Pokemon then it depends whether you were in a city or rural area. Yesterday I went for a walk in my nearest city and caught more Pokemon in a few hours than I had caught in the last week in my area.
The game does get a lot more frustrating and less fun once you've caught everything in your area so there is a lot that needs fixing but it's never a good idea to make massive changes once the game has been released. I would question whether the testing group were given long enough or whether they picked the right people for it, or did they not listen to the feedback before the game was released

 

[basisPx]

i even didn't try to play pokemon Go so it was easy for me

 

[Sirindu]

It largely depends on what happens next and when "next" is.

In a month, a lot of players are going to be ready for a fiercely competitive phase (those who want one, anyway) and I think that team work and group dynamic are something Niantic should look to capitalize on by introducing more ways to compete and better gym dynamics somehow.

Also, how soon will Gen 2 pokemon be released? If that isn't for another year, then, yeah Gen 1 was too easy... if Gen 2 is released around Christmas, then maybe this was just about right if we get some competitive events in between.

So I say it largely depends on what Niantic does next and how soon they do it. I think the game has legs as is for another month. After that it needs events, better competitive features, trading, and Gen 2 (in that order, imo).

 

[Maserati777]

In what world is the game easy?

Really it's more of a luck type game.

 

[ifonlypokemonwasmyjob]

I think there are still a lot of improvements that need to be made before I feel comfortable putting that much time into an app.

From what I've played of it, I don't think it's easy, but like other pokemon games, it just takes a long time.

 

[Esper]

Was it too easy in the beginning or were people just playing it a whole lot because it was new?

I think it's (mostly) good that after level 20 everyone starts to equal out a bit more. That makes it possible (though not easy) for me to fight a gym with a 2000 Dragonite even though it belongs to a person who has twice the amount of experience I have and has been playing twice as much. If the game didn't get a little harder then there would always be someone out there who, because of free time or location, could always be out of reach of anyone else.

 

[Phoenixstarz]

I guess it's a balancing issue, while on one hand it's nice that someone who doesn't have time to play all the time can still take on a strong gym and win but on the other hand it is frustrating for a player that puts in a lot of time catching/hatching/levelling up to see their gym destroyed in minutes.
Personally I think the whole gym idea is flawed, there are many other possibilities out there that would have been fairer for everyone
The fact that the levels are so much harder to get each time makes me question how many of the playtest group actually got that far

 

[Afterglow Ampharos]

Well, it's frustrating. No only is the capture rate suddenly much harder, but Pokemon jump and do that swatting-away animation much more frequently. This means you waste dozens and dozens more Pokeballs than usual, which means you'll be running on empty which leads to yet more frustration, especially when coupled with no way to pinpoint something exciting-looking on Nearby - you're wasting many Pokeballs on super-common Pokemon and little else.

Frustration leads to ragequits so we'll have to see if this Pokemon Go phenomenon sees a big drop in player-base or not.

 

[Qoeju]

I think it's much, much better now.

 

[StarBright]

Hi I think the run away feature is due to higher level rather than a recent programming change. It was not noticeably different between the 2 version. I also believe that half my level up xp is due to pokestops. They do need to act quickly, as the higher levels if level 23 is anything to go by, really aren't that much fun.

 

[StarBright]

Also I think it is strange that at a lower level I was having trouble catching higher cp pokemon. Now I catch ducks with a cp of 600 orange circle & bulbasaur 400 red circle with the red & white balls. Now I rarely see a cp 10 most are cp 90 as a minimum. It appears catching higher cp pokemon also relates to level not just ball type available.